Day 56 and thereafter - the ride has just begun

Day 56 (28 Sep 09) The Days After - Final Thoughts

From Len:

As I walk through JFK airport to catch a flight to Oakland, CA I am in cultural shock. All these people, all these handbags on sale, all this activity. The ride was a gift. It is a good way to see the US and a good way to see yourself. Lots of small towns, lots of variation (except for the incessant blather of Fox “News” in hotel breakfast areas).

How did two and then three 60+ year old men get along in close quarters all this time? I am sure we all had our own quirks and habits, but we knew that we had to ride. Ride we did. Averaged 80 miles a day through thick and thin. I am thankful for traveling with Jim; for his thoughtfulness and solid as a rock riding and planning. I am thankful for Toby coming and putting up with our drive born of a prior 3,000 miles of riding, and adding his element to the mix. I wished that more of our riding friends could have joined us and experienced such a ride.

I am thankful to my family for supporting and allowing me to take the time.

Now I have to re-learn how NOT to eat when ever I see food.

From Jim:

The transition from the intense microcosm of the ride to a more normal routine has been eased by staying in New Hampshire on a beautiful little lake and no need to interact with modern civilization. Tomorrow I will engage former medical school classmates at a 40^th reunion of Dartmouth Medical School. What will that be like? I have come to that reunion by a unique route: a cross country bike ride starting on the Pacific coast on the Olympic Peninsula of the state of Washington and ending in Bar Harbor Maine. I made the trip with a close friend with whom I have been riding for many years. We ride at the same pace and have compatible personal habits, both requirements for a trip that would last 55 days. Len has been a great riding companion; there a very few others, if any, with whom I would attempt such a two person adventure.

We began planning the trip about two years ago. This particular time was chosen to coincide with my retirement from the practice of pathology and because we were both still in excellent physical condition. In addition, for me, it was an opportunity to plan and prepare for a complex trip, thereby “easing” into retirement.

There were many challenges related mainly to weather and mechanical bicycle problems - the later requiring a call to Len’s bike mechanic in California to tell us how to adjust my rear wheel so I could continue to ride safely after breaking a spoke that we couldn‘t replace without a special tool. The nearest bike shop was 150 miles away. Just one of the things we take for granted at home and that just aren’t available in the middle of North Dakota or as it turned out in much of the country through which we traveled.

I hadn’t previously seen most of the country through which we have ridden and much of it has been spectacular. Your view from a bicycle cannot be duplicated by any other mode of travel. The people we have encountered along the way have been interesting and always friendly. Dan, President of the Clam Lake WI ATV club and self-appointed mayor of Clam Lake has been the most colorful and Truman Johnson of Bay City MI a close second. I will not forget them. We have religiously maintained a blog telling of our experiences along the way and the entire photo album is annotated thus, reinforcing the memories. My wife, Bev has been incredibly supportive despite the long separation. Boundless is my gratitude to Len and to Toby for making this a life-shaping experience. It has been an incredible journey.

From Toby:

My last memory of Maine turned out to be a demonstration of the truth a new friend, Gerry, expressed about Maine a couple of days earlier. During the first part of the ride on the last day, I saw various people returning from church to pound anti-gay marriage signs into their lawns. However, as I was grinding up a very steep hill outside of Bucksport in a vigorous rain, a woman in an old beater of a car rolled down her window as I was crossing (blocking?) the intersection where she was stopped and asked, "Would you like some hot soup." While I declined, the point was made - like most Americans, many people in Maine have dislikes of various groups in the abstract, but when they encounter someone in adversity, they have no hesitation in stepping up and helping if they can. While some think America is changing for the worse, I would offer that DeToqueville, in chronicling his travels in America in the 1830's, offered exactly the same observation of the Americans he encountered in his day. What I thus took from the last day of our ride, was that for all of its faults, what a great country this is.

Day 55 Rockport to Bar Harbor

Day 55 (27 Sep 09) Rockport to Bar Harbor 78 miles

On our last day, we woke to find that, despite all forecasts, we were lucky - the forecasted rain hadn't started. Of course, immediately upon mounting our bikes in the parking lot of the hotel in Rockport (our second stay in a place called Rockport and a near match to a third, Brockport), the rain started, gently at first and then with vigor. The forecast promised an inch of rain (the residual of the same storm that inundated Atlanta). This could be an epic day, but Bev saves us by carrying most of our gear. We just have emergency gear, spare tires, tubes, tools, extra clothing.

So we begin with a grade 1 mist (according to the scale developed on day 2 [a long time ago!], Sequim to Anacortes, WA). In anticipation of heavier precipitation, we put on the rain gear and pedal with thoughts swirling in our heads as the wind and rain swirl in our faces.

The ride itself proved a repetition of the previous day - Maine is a series of low hills, which on the back roads we were taking, meant an uphill, often with a punishing grade thrown in, followed by a short steep descent, which was then instantly and interminably repeated. As we rode the first 40 miles in this fashion, the rain increased, maximizing(?) our riding pleasure. Then, as we rode through Searsport ME, two things happened that provided us with a joint epiphany. Jim picked up a glass fragment from the wet pavement and we change our final flat tire. The spokes on his rear wheel have gone three days without a break (after riding 32 days and nearly 2500 miles with one or more broken spokes); what’s another flat tire seen in that context? As we were stopped beside the road in the rain to fix it, it occurred to us that US 1, which we had ridden for the last few miles, would have much gentler grades and a much more direct route for the remainder of our ride than the route we were on. In short, we decided to utilize "the Wally Option": riding Highway 1 to the finish as opposed to the back routes on our map, thereby not only cutting out the punishing grades of the back roads but providing the added bonus of cutting 10 miles off our total ride. The genius of this decision was proven shortly thereafter, in that after the next 20 miles (on US 1), we outran the storm front, and the rain stopped. Of course, the added bonus was that the remainder of our ride also had manageable uphills. While some may castigate us as shirkers for this decision, we revel in our sagacity and ingenuity in the face of adversity.

We stop for lunch in Ellsworth. Hoping for something and someplace warm, we end up using the outdoor tables of a closed-on-Sunday coffee shop. Must have been a popular place, either that or we attracted interested customers. At least a dozen people tried the door, only to find it locked; should have been open with that many potential customers. They never said anything to us; wonder why?. By the time we finished, Toby was cold (a novelty) and the rain had stopped. The sky remained cloud-filled, but without rain.

When we finally see the road sign for Bar Harbor, it feels so surreal; hard to define. This has been a goal for 52 days of riding and now its here. I (Leonard) feel a thankfulness for the safe 4,200 miles in dealing with traffic, bees, grasshopper sex, broken spokes, wet cement, a visit to a Canadian emergency room, brutal headwinds, flats, customs, blow out, sand on sharp corners, blind curves, downhill plunges on bikes that weigh half as much as we do, suspicious food, RVs pulling BOTH an SUV and a boat trailer, pot holes, gravel/dirt roads. There could have been disasters, but there were none.

Bar Harbor is loaded with tourists’ shops and cruise boat people. I feel like I just landed on another planet, yet at one point in our journey, I observed that we must have looked like space invaders with wrap-around glasses hiding our eyes, rear view mirrors attached, streamlined helmets and body hugging, brightly colored spandex clothing.

We end with a dinner and wine at the Havana restaurant, but somehow the ending seems incomplete. Maybe because my thoughts are still jumbled.